Indian Shuttlers Shine at Spain Masters, Doubles Duo Withdraws Due to Injury
Star Indian shuttlers PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth had successful outings in the first round of the Spain Masters. Sindhu dominated Jenjira Stadelmann, winning 21-10 21-4, while Srikanth fought off Sitthikom Thammassin, 21-11 25-27 23-21. B Sai Praneeth also secured a victory over Jan Louda, 21-16 18-21 21-12.
In the women’s singles category, Aakarshi Kashyap and Ashmita Chaliha advanced to the next round. However, the women’s doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand lost their first-round match to Japan’s Rena Miyaura and Ayako Sakuramoto. The doubles duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty withdrew from the tournament after Satwiksairaj sustained an injury.
In other sports news, Indian golfer Kartik Sharma finished tied-fourth at 11-under at The Challenge in Bengaluru. Englishman Alex Fitzpatrick led the tournament after the second round with a score of 7-under 6. Indian golfer Aman Raj moved up six spots and finished tied-10th at 9-under, while Udayan Mane and M Dharma were tied-15th at 8-under.
The Indian mixed team skeet pairings failed to qualify for the ISSF World Cup for Shotgun in Larnaca, Cyprus. The pair of Angad Vir Singh Bajwa and Areeba Khan finished 16th with a combined score of 131 out of 150, while Man Singh and Raiza Dhillon shot 125 to end in 22nd position. Meanwhile, Indian women’s football coach Thomas Dennerby announced a 22-member squad for the Olympic Qualifier Round 1 to be held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, from April 4.
India and the hosts will play each other twice as Turkmenistan has pulled out of the tournament.
Staff Reporter
